


Exercises in Teambuilding and Conflict Resolution

by NevillesGran



Series: Innovations in Managerial Intervention (Magnusquerade) [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Mind Manipulation, Sharing a Bed, Telepathy, Vampires, post-angst fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:48:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22784356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NevillesGran/pseuds/NevillesGran
Summary: Martin and Jon continue to try to figure out where they stand with themselves and each other, and this whole vampire-thrall psychic influence thing.Immediately follows "Innovations in Managerial Intervention"
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Jonathan Sims
Series: Innovations in Managerial Intervention (Magnusquerade) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638013
Comments: 9
Kudos: 126
Collections: The_Magnusquerade





	Exercises in Teambuilding and Conflict Resolution

Decisions made, the lack of blood—and, now that he thought about it, lack of more than three hours’ sleep the night before—hit Martin like a sledgehammer. It was a good thing Jon had superhuman strength, really, because it meant Martin could sag against him without worrying about knocking him over.

He pulled back almost immediately, of course, and stood on his own two feet. He didn’t want to just be depending on Jon, and he didn’t want to impose. 

Jon’s soft smile had already slid back into its usual frown, the faint pressure of him against Martin’s mind turned concerned and guilily grim. “You should get some sleep.”

 _(Obey.)_ “I know, I know.” It was barely past seven, but Martin yawned into one hand. “Um, I have sheets and blankets, I can get you set up on the couch—obviously you won’t want to sleep yet, I guess…”

“Oh, I– of course,” Jon stuttered. His psychic presence withdrew even further, leaving little but a trace of guilt, and Martin had to remind himself that it wasn’t a punishment, it was just—it was what he wanted, anyway. Mental privacy and independence, all that stuff normal people who didn’t regularly interact with the supernatural underworld had.

He forced himself to take another step back from his- from Jon. He tried to build a wall in his own mind—Jon didn’t need all the responsibility of keeping them apart.

“Right. I’ll just...get them.”

“Right,” said Jon, resolutely looking somewhere to the side. 

He caught sight of the open door behind him and turned fully to close it. Something in Martin relaxed another iota—everything terrible in the night was outside, and Jon was in here, which meant Martin was with him. Safe, good, _required_.

...Thought patterns induced _by_ Jon in a fit of instinctive vampiric pique. He had to hold onto that, and the _entirely justified_ ( _utterly wrong_ ) annoyance that came with it. He shored it up into another wall.

Halfway to the linen closet, nearly out of the living room, Martin spun on his heels. “Wait—do you need to go and get anything, I mean, a toothbrush or something? Pajamas? You came here right from work—god, I’m sorry, I didn’t think—”

“I’m fine, Martin,” Jon said firmly. He perched on the arm of the sofa, stiffly like he found it distasteful. “I only need to sleep for a few hours anyway, and anything I need can wait until the morning.” His glance roved around the living room, from the elderly furniture to the fairly cheap tv to the shelves of poetry and fantasy fiction. “I’m sure there’s...something to read.”

Martin’s stomach turned with anxiety at how little he had to offer his master, but it was an almost familiar, comforting sort of anxiety. The same way it used to turn when Jon stared at him over a report and pronounced his research “inadequate.”

It took Martin about fifteen minutes to set everything up for bed. Five minutes to get the linens and turn the couch into a bed, while Jon hovered not quite out of the way, and ten minutes to get ready for sleep himself. It was normally a much quicker affair, but he kept wandering back into the living room to check that Jon was still there—first partway into his pajamas, again before brushing his teeth, again _while_ brushing his teeth… Keeping up his mental barriers left a tension at the edges of Martin’s mind that made him want to catch his breath. 

So about fifteen minutes later, Martin found himself in the doorway of the living room, ready for bed but still looking at Jon, who slouched gingerly on the bed-ready old sofa and looked back at him—though didn’t quite make eye contact. It was kind of him, probably, what with the way Martin yearned for it.

“So...you’re sure you’re okay out here?” Martin asked. “Feel free to have anything in the kitchen, and, um, Netflix is there. Don’t worry about messing up my queue. And...ifyouwanttoreadmymindagain, it’s okay.”

Jon’s spine straightened with a crack; his eyes snapped to Martin and skittered away again. “Really—are you sure?”

“I mean, yeah?” Martin gave a weak smile, then with an active effort made it more confident. “Yes. It’s– it’s clearly uncomfortable for you, to be holding back like this, and it’s...weird for me, too. Right now, at least.” He gestured to his head.

Jon winced guiltily. Martin winced guiltily at making Jon wince guiltily. Jon looked away again.

Martin balled his hands into fists. “ _No_. No self-recriminating feedback loops.”

He forced himself (let himself) walk over to the couch and sit next to Jon. Just the extra proximity helped—from here, Martin could tilt his head back and Jon could just lean forward and take his due—

Jon scooted away, though his gaze remained fixed on Martin’s face. Quiescent though he held himself, his eyes were still too red to pass for human, too dark and deep not to drown in. 

“You’re sure?” he whispered.

Against every instinct, Martin hesitated. “What- what’s it like for you, right now? Not looking?”

“Like not using my left hand,” Jon admitted. “Or...more like my, I don’t know, left thumb. Because I can still use the rest of it, but I can hardly use the whole hand without using the most important part.”

He made a face like he would be blushing if he had the spare blood for it. Martin could feel his own ear-tips turning bright red.

“Okay!” He coughed, wrestling his voice back down from a squeak. “I mean, okay. Just...yeah.”

He barely had time to register Jon’s grateful smile before the flood crashed down his walls—no, not the flood, that was too harsh. The tide rolling in, natural and inexorable, and if it would have knocked him to his knees, if he hadn’t already been sitting, then at least it was warm. It was so warm, as memories of the last twenty, thirty minutes bubbled up faintly as Jon looked through everything he’d been present for but not from Martin’s perspective, and Martin didn’t know why he’d been keeping up walls at all.

He realized, mostly via a stretch in his back, that he’d tipped sideways-and-forward to lean against Jon’s shoulder in perhaps the most awkward way possible.

Martin…” Jon side-eyed him, hands kept carefully in his lap. “You don’t really...that is, are you sure you want me to sleep out here?”

“ _No_ ,” Martin all but whimpered, and grabbed Jon’s hand again as another edifice collapsed. Not the last forever, but maybe the last for the night. “Can I—”

 _Can I stay, please, I’m sorry, don’t make me go away again._ Martin took a deep breath, and squeezed his eyes shut. 

“Can you– would you come and sleep in the bedroom with me?” His eyes flew open. “Not _sleep_ -sleep with, obviously– I know you don’t— Or just sit, for a while—I mean, if you’re not tired yet. Obviously you’re not tired yet. But just until I fall asleep? It would– I think it would make me feel better, but—”

“Of course, Martin.” Jon cut him off with a squeeze of his hand and a smile too soft for his tired face. “Anything you need.”

-

Once upon a time, Martin had curled up on his side to sleep. Ever since Prentiss, he’d been sleeping on his back instead. It was just...easier. Worms could come up through the bed beneath him just as easily as they could come through the wall or creep along the floor, but he could jump up if he needed to, and there was a corkscrew on the bedside table. It used to be under the pillow, so this was an improvement. 

It wasn’t a large bed, though, so with Jon along, it was much more convenient to curl up on his side, and let Jon curl up around him.

With Jon wrapped around him, though, it was okay. Jon was half a foot shorter and several stone skinnier and not warm enough at all to be human; he clung to Martin’s back with no terrible vampiric grace at all, more like a cross between a spider and a limpet. It was the safest Martin had felt in well over a year. Jon’s face tucked in just a couple inches below the nape of Martin’s neck, so that if he levered himself up, he could feed like their bodies had been made to fit together just for this, and Martin let himself relax into it, wrapped in blankets and Jon and the reassuring _sense_ of Jon in equal measure.

Jon was on the outside; he pulled away for a moment, once they were settled, to flip off the bedside light. When he came back, he draped an arm over Martin’s shoulder. Martin clutched the hand to his chest like a teddy bear.

“You’re cold,” he murmured, chafing it.

“I’m always cold,” Jon murmured back, with a note of resignation that would have made Martin ache if he wasn’t already half asleep.

“I’m warm now,” he added, twisting his hand to squeeze Martin’s. A wash of affection and gratitude caressed him just as gently.

But something else…

“And you’re hungry.” Martin started to roll over blearily.

“I’m always hungry.” This was downright bitter. But Jon held him in place, and pressed a kiss against his shoulder. “That’s why you need to sleep.”

“Oh...okay.” 

It was the easiest order to follow yet.

-

Jon didn’t sleep. He didn’t really need to, anymore—a few hours here and there, if absolutely necessary or if he had nothing better to do. He wasn’t getting any work done tonight, but he did have Martin’s dreams to watch.

They didn’t start for about an hour and a half, not really. Flickers of thought giving way to deeper sleep, almost as restful to watch as to experience himself. Then things started to happen again, as Martin’s subconscious awoke to REM—he walked the streets of London, familiar but logic-less in the way of dreams. It would have reminded Jon uncomfortably of his experiences with Michael, if it hasn’t so plainly been Martin. London shifted into the Institute and the Archives, and then Jon himself walked in and demanded to know where Martin’s pants were. Jon stifled a laugh against Martin’s hair as Martin-in-the-dream stammered something about worms—but this wasn’t a nightmare, because then they were- oh, that was kissing. And more. Jon did his best to look away, though the... _sense_ of it was hard to avoid. Was there anything else he could—oh, god, the neighbors were also—

The second round of REM was more restful, at first. Some pastiche of a real memory of a childhood holiday and some movie about a seaside mystery...but then it turned cold and empty; Martin was alone and seeking desperately, knowing that he had failed—failed Jon in particular, wandered off and left again and gotten lost. His wrists bled out onto the sand, uselessly, a trail abandoned behind him, and it took every ounce of Jon’s self-control not to insert himself into the dream and fix it. Claim him. Push into Martin every feeling of reassurance and belonging that he could, until there was nothing left to dream about. 

But that would be its own nightmare, if Martin woke up and remembered it. Unless Jon made sure he didn’t remember it. Or unless Jon made sure he didn’t mind, when he woke up, the way he hadn’t minded this morning—it would be so easy; his mind was so open in his sleep, his subconscious bared—

Jon closed his eyes (it _felt_ like it helped) and reined his Sight in, forced himself to pull his presence back from Martin’s mind. (Elias was right: he was clumsy. He couldn’t watch without being felt in return; he didn’t even understand how Elias did it.)

Martin gave a choked-off sob in his sleep and clutched Jon’s hand, still draped over his shoulder, so tightly that it hurt. Jon couldn’t stand it. He relaxed back into Martin’s mind, watched him pick himself up on the cold beach of the dream and set off once more, desperate but certain at least that there was a home to return to. 

The third round of dreams, some time around 1 AM, was Jane Prentiss from the start, and Jon didn’t even try to not meddle. He offered Martin the memories of corkscrews and CO2 canisters, and watched with immense satisfaction as Martin fumigated his dream-flat with extreme prejudice. Martin even smiled in his sleep. The fourth round, around 3 AM, was another mishmash of relatively harmless memories, with statements mixed in but none vivid enough to turn into a nightmare. 

As Martin drifted back into a deeper sleep, dawn began to threaten, that iota of light in the sky that said Jon needed to get moving now if he wanted to get to the Institute before daylight started to really hit. He needed to _run_ now if he wanted to get to the Institute, grab anything he’d need for the day, and get back before the sun tried to righteously scour him from the earth.

He extracted himself as carefully as possible. Martin shifted, reaching out, and Jon caught his hand and tucked it gently back under the comforter. He could wake him, but...Martin needed the break. 

Jon indulged himself in brushing a curl of hair back from Martin’s forehead.

“Martin,” he whispered, “I’m going to the Institute, but I’ll be back—or, possibly, I’ll get caught up in something and have to stay. Either way, if you wake up and I’m not here, know that…” It felt abhorrent to say, albeit entirely true. “Know that I’m _very_ happy with you and if you’re still suffering the effects of blood loss...well, make up your mind as to whether you want to come into the office, but know that I do not require it. I want you to look after your own health.”

Even though he was already thirsty again, and of course he was, he hadn’t had anything in nearly 36 hours. His throat itched psychosomatically; his gums itched truly as his fangs tried to press out, tried to bite at the rich and willing blood that was _right there,_ literally within reach...

Martin was fast asleep, but on some level he’d heard Jon’s words. Jon tucked the memory into the front of his mind, to be crystal clear when he woke up. It started to slip into his dreams almost immediately, formless though they were at this stage of the sleep cycle. Martin made a soft noise and clutched at the comforter, then stilled again.

Jon locked the flat behind him when he slipped out.

**Author's Note:**

> This was so soft that I might have to write the prequel to IMI, in which Jon willfully (yet also accidentally) fucks Martin up in the first place, just to balance it out.


End file.
